As you pose this question on a human made site to other humans, what other answer can there be? I would be willing to bet that if any of the yahoos on the con side were in a wreck with myself and my dog and I could save them or my dog, they would think there life was more valuable and more worthy of saving. Sure if you ask a shark to save me or it's baby, it would.... Oh wait.. You can't ask a shark anything. I am not saying it doesn't have a valuable place in the ecosystem but I am not going to value its life over another human being's. A lot of people want to get on a high horse and get preachy about we are animals and yada yada animals rights blah blah. That is fine and dandy and while maybe we should be of equal worth, we are not. Not while you are asking human beings and not while you are asking the shark(if you could). It all comes down to who you are asking and you would get a different response per species.

Put a newborn human baby next to any other newborn baby species and tell one of these people on the con side to choose which one lives. Better yet, put their newborn child and another species newborn up and let me choose which one lives. I would be willing to make another bet that they would appreciate me on the PRO side of this argument.

As humans, I would hope you have more compassion for your own kind than you do some animal. Sure, if your sympathetic to an animals plight, by all means, save the animal, as long as doing so does not put a human in jeopardy. Hypothetically, if a whale is beached and you and some of your friends want to try to get it back in the water, that's fine, but if you are put in position to where you have to choose between the life of an animal and the life of a human, I would hope you pick the human to save.I think it is funny how some people don't see the value of human life. They tend to act like we are all inherently evil. What makes this funny is that for them to think that, they must consider themselves evil as well. That being the case, they probably assume all people are just as evil as they are. This means that if anyone's life is worth less than an animals, it's theirs. The rest of us see the value of being a human over being an animal. Because the rest of us know our lives are worth more than an animals means that we are more compassionate about our fellow man.Don't get me wrong, I do not think the people on the NO side should be seen as being worth less than the animals, I don't have to, they already feel that way themselves. If they are put in a place where they have to choose between their own life or an animals and choose the life of the animals, that's fine with me, stupid but fine as long as it does not risk the life of another human.There are some people who I would rather die than an animal. Hypothetically if I had to choose between the life of an animal or a known child molester, I would save the animal. I might kill and eat the animal later but ...Personally, I don't get the whole vegan thing. Humans are designed to eat both meat and vegetation. Killing other animals has allowed us to not only survive but thrive. Most of the animals we eat, cows, pigs, chickens etc.. Are breed for us to eat them. Their ancestral traits that their species had to survive in the wild are long gone. We breed them out so that we could harvest their flesh. If they were born or even left in the wild, they would quickly fall prey to predators. For instance, the ancestors of the domesticated pig were wild boars. Wild boars had the inherited skill and weapons to defend themselves in the wild. Over generations of breeding them to become the domestic pig, we breed out those instincts and weaponry. If left in the wild, they would die.

We are human

As humans we should always first consider the lives of fellow humans before that of other animals. Human lives are worth more because we ourselves are humans and therefore should apply higher importance to our species. In addition our species has brought more progress and advancement then any other species. Other animals simply act as a place holder in there ecosystem. Humans bring something to the world that no other animal can currently provide. Which would be the intelligence to unlock the secrets of the world

We contemplate life

Animals can not contemplate life and its meaning, that is why animals never killed themselves or killed other animals for sport. Humans are afraid of death, they have a higher purpose, and I believe that they have been given dominion over all other species. Animals do not care if they die, It is true if they are in a death situation they will try all they can to defend their selves, but that is how their brain works, it is not because they love life or even remotely think about its meaning. If you argue with this, you have no evidence of their car of life.

I think it depends.

I think it depends. When I get to choose between to safe an animal or a human being, I will originally choose a human being. But if it’s a very bad person, I will choose the animal. Even when human lives are more worth in my opinion, that doesn’t mean we should misuse animals. We still have responsibilities as human beings toward the whole world, so including the animals. So when human being don’t take responsibilities and make a mess of this world, the animals are in my eyes even more worth.

Yes of course

For all those people out there saying no, wait until you are a parent and your view on this topic will change. Granted we are animals our selves but this does not change that to us animals are less important than us. I personally don't believe our sentience, intelligence has any role in this discussion, it's simply counter intuitive to claim otherwise. I would like the see what choice those who said no would make, if they had to kill either a dog/cat or a person.

It shouldn't but it is.

We are humans, it is only logical that we would value our own race over animals. I mean, I love animals, but if I had to choose between a stranger and a random animal, I would choose the stranger. Now if it were my dog and a stranger, I'm saving my dog. If I had one.

This should be easy.

I think as long as animals do not know how to communicate in human language, and are still unable to construct ideas as a whole. And unable to invent things that will make there life's easy. And are unable to hunt down humans and come to the top of the food chain. Unable to a civilization across the world. Unable to invent written, or learn different languages, invent medical drugs to save there own life's, creat technology. Humans will always and should always be consider first before any animals. We Human are truly in our own categories of existence, animals our there to sustain and support our existence. I'm not saying we should mistreat animals, but to consider them ahead of another human is just unacceptable.

Humans are much more important than animals.

Of course, this is a very subjective question. There are so many twists and conditions that would make me re-evaluate my decision. But overall, I'm interpreting this question as "is the average human life worth more than the average animal life?" And the answer is an overwhelming yes. There is an estimated 8.7 million species of animals in the world. In each of those species, anywhere from a hundred to a billion individuals make up the population. Guess how many species of humans? One. So, in the big scheme of things, one human life is undoubtedly more important than an animal's.Now let's think of things from an evolutionary perspective. Natural selection is the process by which organisms, animals, and humans change over time to better adapt to their environment. They take on heritable traits from their ancestors that help them to survive. The human species has mastered evolution in this sense. We have developed brains capable of more intellectual thought and more emotional capacity than any other living species on the Earth. Granted, there are sociopaths and other types of deviants, but I'm talking about the vast majority of humans who are capable of emotion, opinion, and individuality. Natural selection has led to the human species dominating the world, its resources, and its ultimate outcome. That right there is nature's argument that humans are more important than any other living organism in the world.Finally, we have to take into account the nature of those answering this question. I'm willing to bet that the majority of those reading this right now are human. When considering the life of one human versus the life of one animal, we are obligated to place more value upon the life of a fellow human than an animal. It is silly to believe that an animal is more important than a human, when there are billions and billions more animals than humans; when humans have evolved to be the dominant species on the Earth, and when we ourselves are humans assessing the importance of each others lives.

To an extent.

Since we are part of the human species, we should do what we can to keep our species alive and prospering. By the circle of life, this means that we will have to take some animal lives for food (just as any other carnivorous animal does). However, this does not mean we should just abuse animals. Humans do not have so much more worth over animals that we should abuse animals for our circus entertainment, and we should not be out hunting just for the sport of hit (for food is a different story). We should also be aware of how much meat we waste. Lions do not waste one bite of meat when they capture their prey, so we should not waste one bite of meat if a steak is put on our plate. To sum up, humans will always be at the top of the food chain and need to value themselves over animal lives to keep the species alive, but animals' lives still have value and deserve some respect.

People desire a form of meaning in their lives. They naturally want to believe that their purpose is more important than that of other species, which most deem to be lesser beings. In reality, there's nothing making human life intrinsically more valuable, it's all a matter of perspective.

I don't know why this was even brought up as a topic. Of course, humans have spurred on development on Earth, but everything was great before we came along. Now, there's all sorts of problems with the environment: global warming, extinction, etc. The instigator here said that we should look out for our fellow man, but think about it this way. If you are peacefully walking along, and you see your dog lying on the ground dying, are you going to keep walking and do nothing? No! Now, what if you're reading the newspaper and you see that a terrorist has died from a suicide bombing. Which is more depressing: The dog or the terrorist? The dog. The notion that if something isn't just like you then you shouldn't care, which Jayden-Gray, the instigator here said, is ridiculous! That is what brought on racism, sexism, ageism and pretty much every other ism. The "intelligence to unlock the secrets of the world" is what? Intelligence, remember, is different than curiosity. Curiosity is what brought us here, into this environmental crisis. It's not a bad thing, but keep in mind curiosity brings on research, which in turn brings intelligence. However, as we can see, curiosity is not always a good thing. Let's use the example of the dodo bird. Oh, hey, what's that thing. Hmm, it runs away when I come near it. I wonder why. Hey, I know! I'll shoot it! If it weren't for this mindset of extreme curiosity and trial and error, maybe the dodo bird wouldn't be extinct today.

Depends on perspective

It depends whose perspective we look at and their values. Humans value technology and advancement, and therefore we would see humans as more useful than animals because we have invented and discovered so much. If you look at an animal's perspective, you'll find that they don't value technology like we do. They might value a clean environment. They then won't see us as useful as humans have destroyed their environment. No one really knows whose values are correct (environment or technology) therefore no one is worth more.

Very Arrogant Proposition

If the topic was "Should humans value other human lives over animal lives", I would say yes. However, that is not the topic at hand here. Human lives are not somehow more valuable than animal lives, for after all, we are animals too. Besides, the role of animals in nature is extremely under-appreciated, simply because we humans are too arrogant to understand it, and instead, we make assertions like these.

Animals play a vital role in the maintenance of the ecosystems they live in, either by keeping the population of a certain species, plant or animal, in check, fertilizing the environment by pooping, or breaking down and cleaning up organic waste. Are a number of cycles in nature that require other cycles to function such as the Calvin Cycle, Krebs Cycle, Nitrogen Cycle, etc., but I will not go into them unless someone really wants me to.

Humans, on the other hand, do not maintain the environment they live in, but instead destroy it. 14 billion pounds of garbage are dumped into the ocean every year. Most of it is plastic. Over 1 million seabirds and 100,000 sea mammals are killed by pollution every year. The Mississippi River carries an estimated 1.5 million metric tons of nitrogen pollution into the Gulf of Mexico each year, creating a “dead zone” in the Gulf each summer about the size of New Jersey. Approximately 40% of the lakes in America are too polluted for fishing, aquatic life, or swimming. Each year 1.2 trillion gallons of untreated sewage, stormwater, and industrial waste are dumped into US water.

Have we made massive leaps and bounds technologically and intellectually? Sure we have. But those have had and still have a cost, and someone, or something, has to pay for that cost. To say that human lives are more valuable than animal lives simply because we made life more convenient and less ignorant for ourselves is not only arrogant but also quite simply ridiculous.

Kind of, but to a point.

It really does depend on this, because without animals we wouldn't get the food we really need. We need protein, which is part of our life. Yes, we could get protein from other things like nuts, but it really wouldn't be the same. Also, we could live like vegetarians, but that still wouldn't really fit. We get most of our food from animals, anyway.

Evolution of Humanity

We evolved from apes and gorillas. Without animals, we might not even be here. Another point is that WE ARE ANIMALS. This only shows that humans are not more important than animals, since a) we are animals andb) we evolved from animals.

Feels silly that nothing has been specified in the question.

What or who exactly are they supposed to worth to? The human race? The world? The ecosystem? Ridiculous, how can you have such a debate without knowing this first. You all could be thinking either from the worlds perspective or humans. I believe that such a question is referring to this whole world rather than the human race, otherwise that's just confirming we are more important than animals, yes? Deciding we are the only thing that matters in this world for a question like this, nonsense. When thinking through the worlds perspectives, we are just like any other organism on this world, however we have been less of use to it than the animals, I believe the animals are greater than humans. Actually being able to not cause as much destruction as we, considering their beneficence to the world, they are without a doubt the greater.

Depends whether or not you believe in a purpose.

I dont! With an all powerful god we serve no true purpose. If there was nothing before god then there is nothing that needs to be done. What god did if he created us is make a mess for us to clean up. He created our nerves and brains and decided we would go through great pain from inevitable evil but only some of us so that others can save and prevent. Thats like me being your boss and spilling things and breaking things so that you have something to clean or fix. Its stupid. Without us god would clean up his own messes in two seconds so we arent important at all. And neither are animals. There is nothing we are doing here that will. Surve a purpose in the afterlife. The houses we build... The jobs we work... None of it is going to help you in the afterlife as you cant take anything you have worked for with you. If you argue that we have a purpose then i would ask what that purpose is. If you dont know... And at least most dont because they contradict each other then chances are you dont have a purpose because how can you serve your purpose if you dont know what it is? So no we are no more important than animals.

Animals have feelings and thoughts too, we just don't understand them

We like to think about ourselves as bigger beings that are more than other species of the animal kingdom. But the thing is, it's very selfish, at least in my oppinion. Just because an animal doesn't seem to be inteligent or that we don't understand what they are trying to say, doesn't put them into a role that is lower than humans. And don't go on me with a question: "If a puppy and a human baby would be in danger, who would you save." i would either save non of them, or the one i know more, if i had a dog that i loved my entire life and spent great times with it and was about to be hit by a car and at the same time, some granny would be too, i would save my dog, because firt, i don't know the women and second i think she had plenty of her time spent and lived a good life.

It is complicated.

The thing is animals aren't as worthy as humans, actually, it is more like humans are as unworthy as animals. A lion would rather protect itself than anyone else, except maybe its babies. That is natural and logical; each creature fights for its rights. Therefore, its natural that a human will save a human baby instead of of a puppy. But even though humans are in the top of evolution so far, we mustn't assume that we have the right to destroy animals and their habitats. Eating them? Fine. After all, we are naturally carnivorous, and animals don't hesitate eating other animals. But killing them for a little bit of money, making them suffer, and leading them into extinction? That is unacceptable.